Mama Said There'd Be Days Like This

• May. 1, 2008
The Semi-Formal

Tonight is a big night for the homeschooled kids of Cedar Brook Academy.  Tonight is their annual Semi-Formal.  It is their version of a "prom."  There's no dancing, but it's a really REALLY nice meal at a very fancy venue.  It's always held at the Historic Savage Mill.  

The kids really look forward to it and get all dressed up.  Tonight is Zak's very first Semi-Formal.  On Tuesday, Tara came and picked him up and took him to the mall to get his fancy duds.  He came home with nice black dress pants and a nice black shirt with deep blue pinstripes (which probably don't show up in the picture) and a black silk tie.  As for the tie, they had to Google:  "How to tie a tie"  to figure out how to do it.  Tara stopped by today to do it for him.

This evening I got his clothes all pressed and he got cleaned up and dressed.  He actually let me take a couple of shots of him.  I think he turned out quite handsomely.

(I don't know why that picture won't turn)

Of course, what you need to notice is how very nice he looks, all the way down to his *ankles*.  At that point, he insisted that he was wearing his chucks to the Semi-Formal and no amount of persuasion was going to change his mind.  He did remind me of the fact that a few years ago, I allowed Tara to wear *her* chucks to the Semi-Formal; at which point I reminded him that her chucks were covered by her evening gown.  Oh well, I'd rather he wear the chucks than to spend a boat-load of money on nice dress shoes that he won't wear again. 

Even though he cleaned up nice, he is still a fun boy with a wonderful sense of humor, and this picture of Zak and Tara just makes me smile.  I love it that the two of them are so close.  This one is what they call their "Self-Portrait." 

I hope Zak has a great time tonight and I really hope that some of his friends take pictures of him with their cameras, as there was no way, no how that I could convince him to take mine!  Boys!!

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• Apr. 25, 2008
The extreme dictatorship of doorknobs

It has been forever and a day since the last time I blogged.  In that time, my life has been turned completely upside-down and then shaken for good measure.  Yes, and as the good James Bond would say, it definitely has been "shaken, not stirred."  While I won't bore you with every little detail, I will say that my daughter Tara has moved out to be an independent young woman (much to my dismay at her timing.)  I will also tell you that no less than 4 days after Tara informed us that she was moving out, our landlord informed us that we had 30 days to find a new place to live (with our family of 9...errrr...8.)  He had sold his house, but had gotten less than he hoped and felt he did not have enough to buy another place and so wanted to move back into the house he was renting to us.  The hunt was on and we found another place to live, packed up and moved.  This all happened since March 1 (two weeks of which I was also dreadfully sick.)  We are only now just beginning to settle out a bit, although I still can't find the box with all my shoes.  From that intro I will now segue into the body of this post.

The house that we now live in was built in 1961 and I don't believe anyone on the face of this earth has done a single thing to update a single part of it since that date.  And oh, it's just so much fun (uh, NOT) to learn all the little ins and outs of a new dwelling place. Last night I had the total and complete joy of being locked in the bathroom. Now, if I'd been in there all by myself and had a great big soaking tub with bubbles, candles, mood music and a glass of wine (or even grape juice, preferably of the sparkling variety), I really could have made the best of it, but unfortunately, that didn't happen to be the situation.

Before we moved in, a couple of us got stuck in that bathroom. The doorknob was really hard to turn and it had to be totally to the left to release the little thingy that goes into the door jamb.  It was noted by a number of us that the doorknob needed to be changed.  My darling husband put that on "the list."   Well, as of yesterday, it didn't matter *how* far you turned that knob, it wasn't letting anyone out.  The door became its own master and keeper of the universe (at least the universe of  "The Blue Bathroom.")   In the morning, Josh got a shower and got stuck in there.  He told me that he had heard a faint but strangely wicked sort of laughter ringing in his ears.  He opted to climb out of the window and go around the outside of the house in order to escape "The Blue Bathroom."  That evening, I was able to get the door open from the hallway outside. Because the pink bathroom had its own issues (the drain wouldn't drain because the metal stopper thingy broke off *inside* the drain) I took Lily in for a bath and was quite careful not to close the door all the way. Midway through Lily's bath, Darcy came in to ask me a question. On her way out, she grabbed the door and just as I was shouting, "DON'T CLOSE THE D......", she slammed it shut. Oh the joy! 

I tried valiantly, yet vainly to get the door open. Considering my options at this point, I knew there was absolutely no way that I was going to haul myself and a baby out of the tiny  window to get out of the bathroom. I called for Josh to come and try. He couldn't do it. Of course my dear husband and oldest son were at (of all places!) Home Depot getting stuff to fix the *other* bathroom. I needed a macho-man type super-hero to just bust the door down for me and yet, the two strongest people in the family were nowhere to be found to release me. Rachel came and tried, but she couldn't do it either. I told them to get a hammer and just beat the doorknob off. They beat and banged and pounded with all their might.  It was at that moment that I'm sure I heard the same strangely wicked laughter that Josh had heard earlier.  That doorknob just didn't want to come off.  Why should it?  After all, it was in complete control of the little universe known as "The Blue Bathroom."

Finally, with a combined effort, great clatter, and a dent in the hardwood flooring, Rachel and Josh were able to knock off the doorknob on their side of the door. BUT, we still couldn't get the door open. By now, Lily's bathwater is getting lukewarm and her little toes looked like raisins (which she nervously pointed out to me.) I tried to pull off the part of the doorknob on my side of the door, but it wouldn't come off.  And again, why should it?  This doorknob was just not going down without the fight of its shiny, brass-plated life! I had no tools in the bathroom, so I told Rachel to get a big screwdriver and begin to hammer it into the heart of the doorknob mechanism to try to knock off the part on my side of the door.  It would have been easier to hammer a silver spike into the heart of dracula. 

That doorknob really missed its calling. It should have been used to protect Fort Knox. Rachel beat and banged and pounded, pounded, banged and beat, but that doorknob would not come off.  I told her to bang harder.  Lily kept looking at me saying, "Bang. Bang." Yep baby, we are just plain stuck.  Stuck in the universe of "The Blue Bathroom" that time forgot, held in by the maniacal dictator of the doorknob realm.  I didn't even have a diaper in there with me to put on the baby. So, she stayed in the tub. The water was getting cooler.  It might as well have been an episode from the Twilight Zone.  How much time really was passing by on the outside of that door?  Would I be released only to find that my family had aged by 20 years?  Would I become known to all as Shellie Van Winkle? 

I told Rachel to give the doorknob another go and she was *finally* able to get the part on my side to come off. You'd have thought that was the end of the story, right? Well if so, you'd have thought wrong! The inside mechanism was just stuck fast into the door jamb.  More wicked laughter.  I STILL could not get out.  Blasted doorknob dictator!!  I told the kids to call Dad. I thought about having them call the fire department, but resisted the urge. I finally took Lily out of the tub and wrapped her in a big towel. As she sat on my lap, we could see Rachel through the doorknob wormhole.  It was like gazing into another world.   She used the hammer and screwdriver again and beat and banged and pounded. "Bang. Bang," said Lily.  There were other descriptive words that I was thinking, and Bang, Bang were not them!  That stinking mechanism just would not relinquish its control over us!! Rachel used the screwdriver to try to pry it out. No go.

They (whoever "they" are) certainly don't make hardware like this anymore!  The wicked doorknob dictator was hanging on to the last vestiges of power it possibly could in "The Blue Bathroom"universe.  Finally, she attempted to use the claw of the hammer to try to pry it out. It messed up the outside of the door, but didn't do much to the mechanism. I told her to keep trying. I was starting to get more than a little annoyed about being so stuck in the black hole universe known as "The Blue Bathroom."  Finally, Rachel was able to get it close enough to her side that by her pulling it and me kind of pushing it, we were able to break off a little piece and then painstakingly pick apart the mechanism out of the doorknob hole.  And we did have to pick it out, literally, piece by piece.  As we did that, I could have sworn I heard it screaming out in the fashion of the Wicked Witch of the West as Dorothy doused her with a bucket of water.  Oh, what a world.

What an adventure.  We had finally overcome the tyrannical rule of the doorknob master and had broken through the black hole from "The Blue Bathroom" universe.  I was more than relieved to find that as I walked through that forbidden portal, my family truly had not aged the twenty years I feared, but a mere twenty minutes (give or take.)  As I so often reflect after a family adventure such as this (of which we seem to be in no short supply) I so cannot believe that my last name is NOT Murphy!! If it's going to happen, it's going to happen to us!

In closing, I must tell you that now we have blue painter's tape covering the hole in the door for the doorknob.  Currently, we all like it like that.  We feel the need to exercise the greatest care in re-establishing the rule of a new doorknob master.  As you well know, it is for times like these that Revolutions are fought and won.  None of us care to be sucked through the black hole again for another round in the universe of "The Blue Bathroom."  And so, it may be awhile before we put a new doorknob back in that door!!  But, like I said, right now, we all like it like that! 

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• Feb. 26, 2008
Boy, oh boy, my boy!!

Boy, does time fly.  Today it became official.  Today, my boy is one step closer to manhood.  WWWAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!

I don't know why it surprises me so.  We've had this date marked on the calendar for months now and  have been talking about it even longer.  And yet, I'm still surprised that "today" has arrived.  Today, Zak took his test for his learner's permit.  This boy......my boy, should not be old enough for a learner's permit.  This boy......my boy,  should still be chasing the dog around with his little foam baseball bat.  This boy.....my boy, should still be on the floor, contentedly playing with legos.  This boy.......my boy, should still look like this:

 

And yet, sadly for me, he does not still look like that.  And, sadly for me, today all his paperwork was in order.  Sadly for me, he actually studied the driver's handbook before he went in to take the test.  Sadly for me, he seemed to have no trouble with the test whatsoever.  Sadly, for me, he passed with flying colors on the very first try.   And also sadly for me, he already owns his own truck.  Once Tara totalled our family van (my Ford E-350, V-10 SuperDuty 15 passenger pride and joy), we determined that the kids would NEVER AGAIN be allowed to drive the family vehicle.  We determined at that point, that as each successive child reached the legal driving age, we would require them to work for, save for and purchase their own vehicles.  Tara bought herself a Pontiac Grand Am.  We liked it so much that we looked for another Grand Am for Rachel.  Of course, Zak did not want "no stinking little racing car."  Zak wanted a truck.  So, his daddy found him a TRUCK.

Zak's truck is a Ford F-250, extended cab, 8'bed, with a tow package and a plow.  Best of all (according to Zak and his dad) it's a diesel!!  Can you just hear Tim Allen grunting like a caveman over this one? RAARAAARAAARAARAAA!!  Of course, it's not a *new* truck.  I think it's a 96.  But even so, Zak is in love! 

And so, today, my boy.....my very big, tall, and strong boy, has moved one step closer to manhood.  As much as it makes me sad to see my little boy fade into the pages of my memory, I am so proud of the man that he is becoming.  I am proud to see him taking those steps with courage and boldness.  I am proud that he is a hard worker and was able to work and save to be able to provide himself with a good truck to drive.  I am proud that as much as he is the strong, silent type, he has an obvious soft spot for his baby sister and scoops her up into his arms every time he walks past her.  I am proud that he has the dignity to open doors for young ladies.  I am proud that this boy is my son.  This boy.....my boy, has become a young man.

 

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• Feb. 8, 2008
Come one! Come all!! A mere $8 will change your life!!

Today I spent $8 with the hope of completely transforming my life.  And, I truly believe that my little $8 purchase has all the potential in the world of accomplishing that which I desire.  And, what I desire... (aside from a luxurious month-long vacation in a sumptuous villa, fully equipped with maid, butler, masseuse, and professional chef, right on the sands of some remote corner of Hawaii, Costa Rica, the Bahamas--oh, any white sand, clear blue-water, palm tree-laden beach will do)  sorry, I'll wake up now...Back to hard, cold reality...what I desire is for my life to be a smooth-running, organizational dream.  I so desire that my days will be laid out for me in such a way that I can accomplish the tasks of keeping my house straight, educating my children, preparing our meals without having to take out a loan to pay for the food, getting bills paid on time, being able to find matching socks for just one kid just once during the week, giving time to others, and being able to remember the last place that I left my brain.  Yeah, that would be nice.  It's really nice to know where I've set my brain down, as it comes in handy from time to time.  And so, today I spent $8 for a chore planning system that will prove to be my knight in shining armor.  Well, maybe not *shining* armor, as I would probably have to polish it first and I know I don't have time to add "polish armor" to my to do list.

Now what, you may ask, could possibly accomplish all that I desire for a measly little $8?  Well, I bought the printable chore organizing system from Motivated Moms.  ( http://motivatedmoms.com/ )  And in doing so, I confirmed what I had already suspected and my mother has probably known since I was born.  I am a box-checker.  Probably a bit of a free-spirited box checker, but a true and bonafide box checker all the same.  I delight in planning things out.  I love to plan out my next year's curriculum studies.  I love to plan out vacations.  I love to draw floor-plans.  I love to plan out just about anything that can be planned out.  The more fun the event, the more exciting it is to plan out.  However, planning out chores that need to be done around the house?  Well, that's just not as much fun as planning a vacation.  And because household chores are jobs of tedious, not to mention overly-repetitious monotony, the planning of said chores also becomes as much of a drudgery as the actual performing of the tasks themselves.   Hence, my true need to spend $8 for a handy-dandy little chart where all my chores have been laid out for me for an entire year!!  Oh what delight!!  What joy!! 

So, I have bought and downloaded and printed my delightful choreganizer.  I have 3-hole punched each and every page.  I have set it up in a notebook.  I have read nearly every page for the entire year.  I have added the birthdays and anniversaries of both sides of the family to each appropriate date.   AND (drumroll please.............................) I have actually completed 3 of the tasks for today's date!!  Joyfully, gleefully, and dare I say, giddily! 

And why wouldn't it be fun to do my household chores?  Someone else has decided what needs to be done today.  Someone else has laid it out and organized it into a page that send shivers of joy up my spine.  I did not need to have my brain in hand to figure out what jobs I should tackle today.  Best of all, someone has given me adorable little boxes to check off when each job has been completed.  Today I swept my front porch.  It's been bothering me for about 2 weeks because it's really been needing a good sweeping.  Today it got one!  Today I changed the sheets on my bed.  That's been bothering me too because everyday I keep meaning to change them, but I get busy with other things and then it becomes time to slide between them before I fall unconscious somewhere else in the house.  My dishwasher got emptied and refilled, eagerly awaiting a few more companion dishes for the wash tonight.  I got some laundry done, so I don't get backed up with 60 loads again (not so sure my sister-in-law will come to my rescue a second time!)  And best of all, the dogs actually got fed today!  They usually get fed (I think), although they're definitely fat enough that they could probably live off their own fat-stores for a month before you could tell they actually needed to be fed.  But, because the box got checked, I know FOR SURE that they got fed.  (Now maybe we won't keep refilling their food bowls 4 times a day!!)

It feels great!  It feels wonderful.  I did not do an enormously thorough deep cleaning of my entire house today.  I just did 3 or 4 things.  But, I KNOW that I did them.  I know that tomorrow my handy-dandy little list will give me about 5 or 6 more things to do and they will get done.  In time, maybe my house will be straighter and more organized than it is today.  Maybe I will be able to find the blue sock with pink polka-dots that matches the other blue sock with pink polka-dots so that my daughter can wear them both at the same time instead of one blue sock with pink polka-dots on one foot and one green sock with grinning monkey faces on the other.   And maybe, just MAYBE, this list will help me to keep track of where I keep leaving my brain.  What do you think?  Have I just totally and completely deceived myself into thinking that my little $8 just bought the savior of my little household's world?  Yeah, that's what I thought!

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• Feb. 4, 2008
Never fear! Soaper-woman is here!!

So, I've kept you in suspense far too long!  Two birthdays, out of town company, mid-year high school reviews, a baby with a rash, and a daughter with a bad back, plus regular daily life have just taken a priority over my blog.  So sorry.

So, on Thursday, my sister-in-law, Lisa, decided that we were going to get ALL of my laundry done.  "Where,"  she asked, "is the nearest laundromat?"    She might as well have asked me, "How would you like to die today?"  You have never seen me hem, haw, and hedge like I did when she asked me that question.  You see, laundry is my greatest downfall, my most hated household chore.  It is nothing short of being my mortal enemy.  I have NEVER in my life been good at keeping up with laundry, even in the best of times.  Go ahead, you can even ask my mother.  (Once, she came over and was doing laundry at my house and actually found something like mushrooms growing in my dirty laundry!)  Give me a month with a well that works when and if it feels like it and I am totally inundated with dirty clothes. 

Lisa is much better at getting her laundry done than I am and she insisted and persisted until I made some calls and found out where my local laundromat was.  Then she proceeded to grab a handful of garbage bags and started shoving dirty laundry into the bags.  I sat in my laundry pile, trying hard to sort out clothes and trying even harder not to burst into tears at the sheer enormity of what my sister-in-law was "forcing" me to do.  Not only were there children present, but there were children EVERYWHERE!  I must not show my weakness.  I must be strong!  (Inside I was totally overwhelmed.)  Lisa led the charge and began to get the bags of laundry to the living room where we were going to get the boys to put them in the back of my 15 passenger van.  Very shortly, it looked as though the van might not be large enough to transport it all.  Maybe we should rent a tractor-trailer to transport it all.  By the time we had about 10 huge garbage bags totally stuffed full of laundry, I was becoming energized at the realization that I might really get all this laundry done and Lisa was becoming a bit overwhelmed at the enormity of the task at hand.

To my utter dismay and surprise, we decided to just do the 10 bags and 7 laundry baskets-full and leave the rest for another time.  We got to the laundromat and it was pretty empty.  We realized that there were 3 tremendously large, mega-industrial sized washers and about 6 medium industrial sized washers.  Okay, this might not be too terrible after all.   We got what seemed like about 400 pounds of quarters and started loading.  And loading.  And loading.  And loading.  And loading.  And loading.  And loading.  Well, you get the point.  However, what we discovered was that a mega-industrial sized washer would wash about 7 normal washer loads at once.  OK!!  Now, we're getting somewhere.  This was actually getting really exciting. 

Things got even more exciting when we realized that the mega-industrial washers completed the wash in only about 15 minutes.  We had our shopping carts and it was like a race between us to get the wash from the washer into our little shopping buggies and over to the dryers.  We were squealing like two little girls on Christmas morning.  Anyone else in the laundromat must've thought we belonged in the local insane asylum.  Once we got about 10 dryers going and another round of mega-and medium industrial washers going, we called my daughter Tara.  I told her to grab her cousin David (Lisa's oldest son, who is only 3 weeks younger than my Tara) and get ALL the rest of the laundry that was ANYWHERE in the house and bring it (along with lunch for me and Lisa) to the laundromat.  I was absolutely giddy with the overwhelming delight of the situation.  All I remember was Tara asking me, "Mom, are you alright?  Mom?  Seriously." 

More delighted squeals went up from both me and Lisa when the dryers completed drying  in about 20 minutes.  We were on such a roll.  We started folding and folding.  Then the other washers began to finish and it was another shopping cart race.  We had to have had about 12 dryers going.  We folded and folded some more.  About the time that we got as much folding done as was dry, in walked Tara and David with about another 6 huge garbage bags of laundry.  We started all over again, but this time we were able to spread the love and excitement of the size of the washers with the kids.  They just didn't quite appreciate the efficiency of the situation.  They looked at us out the corners of their eyes when we squealed in delight at the amount of laundry that we could stuff into just ONE mega-industrial sized washer.  Then they looked at each other with that "knowing" look that could only say, "Yes, our mothers have really gone off the deep end this time."

It was wonderful to have Tara and David around when the dryers began to finish their cycles.  They helped us fold and fold and fold and fold and fold and fold and fold and fold and fold and fold.  Well, you get the picture.  They were real troopers and didn't complain a bit, although they never did quite get into the extreme state of pure, unadulterated bliss that Lisa and I were in.  After about 4 hours of washing, shopping cart races, drying and folding and folding and folding, along with loading everything back up in the van (and boy, was THAT a trick!), with our backs burning in searing pain,  Lisa and I dragged ourselves into the seats of my van and got ourselves home.  We calculated how many loads of laundry we probably got done and we think it must have been about 60.  Really.  Sixty.  Truly.  To which I say, "My family has WAY too much clothing."  

I have determined that before spring, I will cut every person's wardrobe by at least half.  I will NOT be doing this much laundry again!!  EVER!!  But, I must say that my sister-in-law is my hero.  Without her dogged persistence, I would never have gotten all that laundry done and caught up.  Without her to come to my rescue, I would have been buried under a true mountain of dirty laundry from which I may never have overcome.  Her selfless devotion to my family's laundry needs went above and beyond the call of duty.  She is truly a super-hero.  I have seen her cape flapping in the breeze behind her.  The kids may call her "Mom" or "Aunt Lisa" but I call her, "Soaper-woman"!!   

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• Jan. 17, 2008
Invasion of the In-laws, Part II

So on Wednesday morning, I got up at 7 am or so, after having crawled into bed a bit after 2:30, and I met my friend Amy at Curves.  I was truly surprised that I was able to put any effort at all into my workout.  Amy and I have wonderful visits at Curves and meet there 3 times a week.  After our workout, I stopped on the way home and picked up a couple of grocery items and headed on home. 

Upon arriving home, I was greeted by a panic-stricken Tara.  She was absolutely white as a sheet and may have been hyper-ventilating as well.  "MOM, we have NO WATER!!!!"  Now an event of this magnitude would normally be a crisis of epic proportions to Tara in particular, who absolutely cannot ever leave the house without showering.  (I believe she would say it's against her religion or some other such reason.)  However, on a day when we had an extra 8 people in the house......well, lets just say that this was most definitely a crisis of epic proportions!  We'd been having a bit of a struggle with our well anyway, but I was hoping it would be more on the cooperative side while we had our houseguests.  Especially since the landlord had spent the majority of the previous Saturday working on it and it had worked fine since then.  Guess that was too much to hope for.  Our last name really should be Murphy.  So, it appeared that we were in for another family adventure. 

I dutifully went to check the water, hoping beyond hope that the water would magically come splashing out of the faucet upon command.   But, much to my dismay,  just as Tara had so frantically announced, we definitely had NO water.  Not a single drop.  Well, this was going to be quite interesting.  Things like this have happened so many times in my life that I have learned to look at it as an adventure, or a challenge.  Lisa (my sister-in-law) was up for an adventure as well, and so we began to try to be creative about the situation.  We sent Mark out to the store to buy a number of gallons of water for flushing.  We figured that flusing was probably of utmost importance in a house with 2 working toilets and 17 people!  We called Danny and asked him what to do.  He told us to shut off the power supply to the pump and let the water build back up.  After about an hour, we had a steady stream of water-----for a little while.  We called the landlord and let him know what was going on and set up for him to come and work on it on.............Saturday!!!!  A whole 3 days away!! 

Lisa and I had to determine who was most in need of showering and let that person get a shower, military style.  We were able to function quite well like that actually.  And, we figured out that if we ran out of water and flipped the switch for the well pump, in about an hour, we'd have more water. 

BUT..........what to do with all the mountains (and I do mean mountains!) of laundry that needed to be done?  Because we'd been having this problem with the water suddenly just disappearing since before Christmas, my dirty laundry was quickly threatening to overtake the known free world.  But, I shall save that tale for another day! 

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• Jan. 14, 2008
Invasion of the In-laws

Fortunately for me, my in-laws are the friendly sort.  Last Tuesday night Danny's brother, Mark and his family, came to visit us.  They had car issues on the day they wanted to leave and weren't able to get on the road until roughly 6 pm.  They pulled up into our driveway around 1:30 in the morning.  After spending about an hour together, we all decided to take a bit of a nap before the sun began to rise.  We had people sleeping in all bedrooms in the house, plus the kitchen, the living room and one in the basement.  Oh, did I tell you that the headcount in my house was SEVENTEEN?!?!

Yep, we were a family of 17.   The adults were outnumbered 3 to 1.  Believe it or not, everyone gets along amazingly well.  Lisa and I seemed to be on the same track many years and had babies in the same year.  A lot of my kids have a built-in buddy of a cousin.  Lisa's first son, David,  and my second daughter, Tara, were born 3 weeks apart.  Three years later, she had Micah in March and I had Zak in May.  Two years after that, I had Josh in January and she had Matthew in August.  Then she had Angelica two years after that, who is a primary reason that we have Megan (who is 3 years younger than Angelica).  Megan was born 6 months before her cousin Nathanael.  Then came my Darcy 11 months after Nathanael.  Three years after that Lisa was surprised by Sam, and two years after that I was surprised by Lily!  In a span of 19 years the two of us had 13 children between us.  And if it seems like it's always someone's birthday, that's because it IS always someone's birthday.  Every single month of the year, there is at least 1 birthday or anniversary.  May has the most, with 7 birthdays between all the aunts, uncles and cousins!

For the most part the cousins get along like siblings.  They are great with each other, but will definitely squabble like brothers and sisters if they don't happen to agree on something.  I think that because my boys are so outnumbered by girls in our house, they really see their cousins as extended brothers.  Megan simply adores Angelica and is basically attached at the hip to her the entire time they are together.  There seemed to be plenty to keep the kids busy.  The trampoline was a big hit, especially since the weather was in the 60's the first couple of days they were here!  The kids jumped, they biked, they played X-box, they climbed trees, they played Wii, they shot air-soft guns, they raked leaves (ok, maybe that wasn't exactly FUN, but that was Uncle Mark's idea). 

Mark seems to delight in seeing what needs work around my house and fixing it!  He fixed 2 sinks, helped snake out a toilet (that we found a pudding cup stuck in-yeah, that will make it difficult to flush!), he raked leaves, he changed the headlight on my van, helped my husband put in a new dishwasher, and helped our landlord with the well.  I'm sure he did other things too, and I'm just having a mental block.  I'll check and see if he does windows and if he's available for hire.

We had a great time together.  I won't put all our week's adventures in a single post.  I'll put the rest of it in, as it happened (only it was last week and not this one)   

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• Jan. 4, 2008
Mmmhmm and Naaa-ahh

Oh the joys of language and babies!  Lily is now 16.5 months old and is really beginning to get a grasp of language.  The kids find her to be a great play-toy, and now the toy even talks!  I can't tell you how they delight in asking her the following couple of questions (over and over and over again!)

Josh:  Lily, do you want to go to bed?

Lily:  Naaa-ahh

Josh:  Are you sure?

Lily:  Mmmhmmm

Josh:  Do you want to go night-night?

Lily:  Naaa-ahh

Josh:  Are you sure?

Lily:  Mmmhmmm

Plain, simple and makes him laugh every single time!   Lily, of course, thinks she is just as big as the other kids and now will laugh at them as they laugh at her.  She's absolutely at "maximum cuteness" age.  Not one of the kids can walk in the room without getting or giving a kiss to her.  They all have to scoop her up in their arms and squeeze that adorable little toddler body of hers.  And she is learning as well to run up to them with her little lips in the kissing position saying, "Mmmmmmmwah!"  And then, when anything happens that shouldn't, Lily is the first to say, "Uh-oh!" 

I'm just so blessed and priviledged to have had the opportunity to experience these little ones 7 times over.  Lily is in the middle of what I call "my favorite age" which is between 12 and 24 months old.  I love my other kids too and there are absolutely really special times with them.  But, this little girl!  Right now, I'm SOOO wrapped around her little finger.  And my imaginary conversation with her goes like this:

Lily:  Mama, do you want me to grow up?

Mommy:  Naaa-ahh

Lily:  Mama, are you sure?

Mommy:  Mmmhmm   

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• Jan. 3, 2008
Mrs. Number 101

I suppose that all the craziness of the season has subsided for most of us.  Ours was really not exceptionally busy; mostly I think I got a bit lazy in documenting it.  I will recount for you, however, the event that I feared to post prior to Christmas.  Feared to post, because I was afraid that my kids might actually read my blog on occasion and would discover their biggest Christmas gift.

On Wednesday, December 12, I took the little girls to Wednesday classes and fully expected to stay there for the Mom's Respite group.  When I got there, Deb (the leader) was not there and group was cancelled for the day.  Hmm, what do I do with 2 hours of time and no people to cart along with me?  Ahhhh, Target, take me away!!  I jumped into the van and took myself straight to Target.  We needed toilet paper and stuff like that anyway, so the trip *did* have a purpose.  As I found myself blissfully, peacefully, and therapeutically strolling up and down the aisles of Target, I wandered into the electronics department.  Josh had made a comment that he sure would like a Wii for Christmas.  "I'll bet you would.  You and at least half of the other kids your age in America.  Good luck buddy."  And on this particular Wednesday, this particular Target had no Wii's available either.  HOWEVER.........

The kid working the register was telling someone else that they were getting in a shipment of Wii's on Saturday night.  I grabbed the kid by the shirt and proceeded to interrogate him as any good mother would.  "When will this shipment be available?"  "Sunday morning, first thing."  "What time does the store open on Sunday morning?"  "8am"  "How many Wii's are expected in this shipment?"  "About 20"  To which an older, and more knowledgeable saleskid said, "No way goofball.  This is a MAJOR shipment and there will be at least 60 units."  (60 units, huh?  This could be possible)  "What time would I need to be here to be in line to make sure I actually get a Wii?"  "Oh, if you're here by 7:15, I'm SURE you'll get one."  (7:15?  I don't think so.  Gotta be here earlier than that.  But HOW early?)  (Do I REALLY want to do this????)

I went home with my toilet paper and laundry detergent and a plan formulating in my brain.  I would go the extra mile for my kids and make a valiant, if not Herculean effort, to get a Wii for my kids for Christmas.  As the week marched on, I kept an eye on the weather reports for the weekend.  It was not looking good.  Saturday night the weather was supposed to get frigidly cold AND to rain, snow. sleet, all that fun wintry mix stuff.  Oh joy.  Have I mentioned to you just how much I detest weather like that?  No, well, I detest all the cold, rain, snow, sleet, wintry mix stuff.

Saturday night came and I asked my dear, darling husband if he might be willing to get up early and go stand out in the cold, nasty weather and get a Wii for the kids.  "No."  Point blank.  He doesn't usually just say "no" flat out to me, so I knew it would be useless to try to persuade him.  I would be the one to do this.  I did not sleep well on Saturday night.  The anticipation of what I intended to undertake was too much in the forefront of my mind for me to be able to sleep well.  It was cold and extremely windy and raining very hard.  I kept wondering if I really wanted to go stand outside in this mess.  Would I be able to drive in this mess?  Was it just rain or was it ice?  Was it going to stop?   Again, did I REALLY want to drag myself out of my nice, warm, king-sized bed and go out into the cold and wet rain?  Are my kids REALLY worth this?  I concluded that, yes, they are worth it to me.

I should have gotten up at 4am when I was doing my mental gymnastics, but somehow I persuaded myself to go back to sleep.  I reawoke at 6am.  I got up and got myself dressed in the warmest clothes I own and asked my darling one last time if he would be willing to do this for our kids, for me.  "No."   He rolled over and began to snore. Okay, here I go.  It wasn't raining anymore when I left the house, but there was ice on the trees and there were a number of large tree branches down in the roads as I drove the 30 minutes from my house to Target.  I decided that I was hungry and would risk a quick stop at McDonald's for breakfast.  Well, they must have been gathering the eggs and milking the cows for the breakfast of the guy in front of me because it took *forever* for him to get his meal.  Someone had pulled in behind me after I ordered, so I couldn't leave even though I was desperate to do so.  I think I might have put a dent in my steering wheel.  If this kept me from getting a Wii, I was really going to kick myself.

Finally, I got my measly little bacon, egg and cheese biscuit and my Dr. Pepper and headed the rest of the way to Target.  Somehow I got behind a fearful little old someone who would not even drive remotely near the speed limit on the little 2 lane road between McDonald's and Target.  Talk about frustrating!!  As I pulled into Target, I noticed that the parking lot looked QUITE full for 7am on a Sunday morning.  And that's when I saw it.  I saw the LINE.  The line that extended from the front door to around the side of the building.  My heart sank.  But, I proceeded to park my van and RUN to the line to get a number.  My number was 102.  Again, my heart sank.  If they had gotten in 60 units, there was no way I was going to get one.  I asked the guy how many units they had gotten.  "Between 100 and 150."  Wow.  That trip to McD's could have been a deal-breaker if they only got 100.  But, I got in line anyway.  Across the parking lot there was a Best Buy with a long line too.  Apparently, they had only gotten 87 units.  People were coming from there to get into Target's line. 

All of us in line were talking about who we were in line to buy for.  It was a jovial bunch standing out in the cold, wet parking lot that morning.  We found out that the guy who was number 1 in line had gotten there at 9pm the night before and had camped out at the front door all night long.  We found out that a guy in line at Best Buy was willing to sell his spot in line for $200.  We learned quite a bit about each other, not a single bit of which I remember today.  Around 7:45am, a manager came down the line with "official" numbers.  I moved up to number 101.  When he came by, I just had to ask, "Do you know how many units you have this morning?"  "Yes ma'am.  We got 114 units."  AND I GOT 101!!  I did it!!  I made it just in time!!  You should have heard the groan of dispair that went up from the folks just 13 people behind me.  It was officially 8:32am when I finally got through the front door and into the store.  I had only had to endure about 15 minutes of cold drizzle before I got inside. 

And so, my kids got a Wii for Christmas.  I'm glad.  I'm glad that I got up to brave the cold and the wind and the rain.  I'm glad that I got there just in time.  I have to admit, it's really tons of fun to play.  I can do things on this machine that I could never do in real life.  I have bowled a 205!  I have shot a 40 on a 9 hole golf course.  Then again, there are some things that one will just never master.  Tennis; not my thing.  I haven't even tried Boxing.  But all in all, it's a lot of fun and it is a good fit for the wide range of ages we have in our family.  I told my kids the story of how we actually got a Wii.  They'll never truly appreciate it, but overall, maybe it wasn't such a big deal.  Afterall, *I* didn't camp out all night long in the wind and the rain like Mr. Number 1 did.  I got to stay in a warm, dry bed most of the night.  And I ended up with exactly the same thing as Mr. Number 1.  I just happened to be Mrs. Number 101!   

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• Dec. 3, 2007
Eggnog anyone? Nevermind, Darcy just drank the whole quart by herself.

Do your kids like eggnog?  I didn't like it when I was a kid.  I think it was the name that really turned me off.  Any drink made of egg just could not be good.  It just sounds slimy to me.  Not appealing to consume in liquid form.  And NOG!  What in the world is NOG??  And where did the word "nog" come from anyway??  (I'm sure that some wonderfully trained etymologist out there knows, but I don't.)  Combine them together and it just doesn't sound like an appealing drink to a kid.  However, my kids are of the abi-normal kind, and as such, they just love eggnog!! 

Rachel just came home from school with stuff for supper.  It's taco night here.  Quick and easy, just the way I like it.  She also got 2 quarts of eggnog.  Somehow, Darcy has extremely sensitive eggnog-detectors in her nasal cavities.  We hadn't even unpacked a single grocery item, but she was already in the kitchen just chugging down quite a large cup that was quite full of eggnog.  Having polished that off, she happily poured herself the rest of the quart.  Of course, I was sitting right here at the computer, less than 5 feet away from her.  In my own defense, however, I was not facing her and it did take me a couple of minutes to return from computer-coma so I could detect and decipher what the glug-glug-glug-mmmmm noise behind me actually was. 

By the time I turned around, surveyed the situation, and determined it required an immediate eggnog intervention, the entire quart of eggnog was gone.  Finito.  Or as Lily would say, "All done!"  Darcy, in one fell slurp, consumed enough caloric-intake for more than half the day!  Thank God that this eggnog is the harmless, grocery-store, non-alcoholic variety.  It appears that there's enough left in the other quart for each of us to have about a shot glass worth.  I guess Darcy may need to be enrolled in a 12-step Eggnoggers Anonymous program.  Or,  maybe we should just hide the rest!  Gotta love that girl. 

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• Dec. 1, 2007
Who knew they experience Black Friday at Historic Jamestown??

Never in a million years would I have thought that Historic Jamestown experiences Black Friday, just like every Wal-Mart, ToysRUs, and shopping mall in America.  But, they do; and we were part of 14 million people to visit it on Black Friday this year.

The day after our "hotel adventure" we had planned to spend the day at Jamestown.  A little educational sidebar to our holiday, you might say.  I had been planning to visit Jamestown this year anyway as we will begin to study it when we resume our studies after Christmas break.  I went there on a field trip myself as a grade-schooler and I just loved it!  So, the plan was to get up on Friday morning and eat breakfast and go to Jamestown.  Simple, right?  Well, I've learned that nothing really turns out simply when it involves my family.  Throw in my 2 dogs and my mom and dad for good measure and you could end up with any variety of scenarios for the day.

We, in my household, are not really early birds.  We are of the opposite variety of fowl--night owls.  However, Thanksgiving night, we were pretty tired.  Once we finished playing musical hotel rooms, we were all about ready to call it a day.  The weather on Thanksgiving Day was gorgeous:  75 and sunny.  During the night, the temperature dropped a mere 40 degrees!!  AND, the wind was really kickin' too.  We got up and my dad came by saying that the free breakfast that the hotel offered would be over in 30 minutes.  What a wonderful way to start the day!  Rush for the food!!  By the time I got down there, there were 2 (folded) scrambled eggs and a box of Cheerios left.  No danishes, no sausages, no bread, no bagels, no Fruit Loops.  Well, I figured that there HAD to be a McDonald's close-by.  However, the girl working the breakfast room was fantastic and brought out tons more food and also made us waffles to boot.  While we got the rooms emptied and the van all packed up, my dad left to go to a local grocery store to pick up our Pagan hams for Christmas.

Now, if you've never heard of a Pagan ham, you are really missing out!!  It is absolutely, without a doubt, the most fantastic ham I have ever eaten in my entire life!  My kids think it is absolutely hysterical that for Christmas and Easter (the two holiest days of Christianity) we would just stuff our faces with PAGAN ham!!    Now, you may ask, WHAT is a PAGAN ham?  Is it a pig who denies the deity of Christ?  Is it an aethiest pig?  An agnostic pig?  Nope, none of the above.  A Pagan ham is a ham, not unlike a Smithfield or Gwaltney ham.  The name comes from the fact that these hams are cured in an area near the Pagan River in Virginia.  No religiousity about it. ;o)  Well, sadly, Dad came back empty-handed.  The Pagan hams had all sold out.  BUT, the grocer is going to save some for us and call Dad when they get some more in.  So, Christmas this year will taste like Christmas after-all.

I'm thinking, "Ok, let's head off to Jamestown now."  I didn't realize that we had to go back to Granny's house to pick up the leftovers from Thanksgiving Day.  Ok, detour.  I'm good with detours.  And it was really nice to get to see Granny and Aunt Linda once more before we headed out.  I debated about whether or not we should leave the dogs at Granny's.  I really didn't want them to be in the back of the van barking their fool heads off because they were cold or something.  It would be just my luck that some ASPCA person would be walking by about that time and I would be arrested for cruelty to animals or some such thing.  It would really put a cramp in my day if I got carted off to jail because of the dogs.  Not being one overly fearful of tempting fate, we decided to go ahead and bring the dogs with us. 

I also thought about leaving Lily with Aunt Linda.  She refuses to sleep at all when we are anywhere but home.  She will not sleep in someone's house.  She will not sleep if we are quiet as a mouse.  She will not sleep in our car.  She will not sleep neither near, nor far.  She will not sleep as we walk about.  She will not sleep, just cry and pout.  She will not sleep here nor there.  She will not sleep anywhere.  She does not like green eggs and ham.  She does not like them Sam I am!!  In the end, I decided to just bring her along with us and see what excitement she would add to the day.

We got to Jamestown about noon.  We were astounded by the number of cars.  Completely dumb-founded is more like it.  We were told to park in the overflow parking lot.  Who knew Jamestown has an overflow parking lot!?!?!  This was not a good sign.  We got inside the building to buy our tickets.  The line was a half a mile long!  AT NOON!!  Danny and Dad stood in line for tickets and I took all the girls to stand in line for toilets.  We all ended up being done about the same time, so that worked well.  I decided that I wanted to take the kids to see things in the chronological order that they happened.  The kids didn't really care, but I was hoping to make some sort of educational impact on their brains.  We visited the Powhatan Indian Village first.  We were pretty amazed that their houses, which were basically reeds woven together (and resembling wicker placemats) were so air-tight.  It was a cold, windy day, but those Indian houses were warm, and that was without the fires that would have been in the middle of the house back in the 1600's.There were lots of animal skins around and the little girls were fascinated with those.  They thought it would feel pretty good to sleep with a blanket of rabbit fur over them at night.  I agree.  We saw a turkey cooking over a spit and discovered that it really didn't take any longer to cook them over a spit than it does to cook them in the oven.  I'm thinking next year we should cook our turkey on a spit.  I'll probably get out-voted though.

After the Indian Village, we headed down to the river and went on a couple of the boats there.  They are replicas of the Susan Constance, the Discovery and the Godspeed, which brought the colonists to Jamestown.  So tiny.  At least one of the replicas there has actually sailed from England to Jamestown under it's own (wind) power.  Those people were so amazingly brave to trust their lives across such a vast ocean to these itty-bitty little boats.  I'm not so sure I could have done that.   

After we finished touring the boats, we headed up to Jamestown Fort.  It was probably the most crowded of all the parts we visited.  But, it was so cool to walk through.  The fort is in the shape of a triangle, with cannon at each corner, which, of course, Darcy wanted to fire.  Everything is recreated to look as it would have 400 years ago and there were a bunch of little buildings and houses inside.  People dressed in period costume were abundant and were so fun to listen to. 

We went to the Governor's house and discovered that he had a trap door beside his bed in his bedroom.  (His was the only house that had a separate bedroom).  Megan asked what it was for.  We thought it might be a hiding place in the event of an Indian attack.  We found out that it was for him to keep his personal stock of food in.  His food was better than that stored in the common storehouse and it was more plentiful as well.  For the governor, it was all about appearances.  However, he was not paid by the queen for his presence in the colony.  He was there on his own nickel and was hoping to share in the profit of the Virginia Company (which never made a profit.)  Everything he had was ornate.  He even had leaded glass windows.  Really cool.  We learned so much, even though we really didn't get to linger as long as we wanted to.  It was so windy and cold.  There were so many people.  It was hard to get into each of the houses to hear what was being taught.  All in all, I think the kids had a good time.  I gave the big kids a disposable camera and told them to "shoot Jamestown" from their own perspective.  I'm anxious to get that camera developed!

By about 3:30 the kids were really hungry and we were not about to spend a ga-zillion dollars on the food there at Jamestown, so we decided to call it a day and head on out.  After a dinner of Chick-fil-a with my parents we headed out.  As I got on the highway and really got up to speed I heard the most terrible retching, gasping, and gagging coming from the back of the van. Oh joy!  It went on and on.  Literally for 10 minutes I listened to the most horrible, near-vomitous sounds that you have ever heard.  BUT, there was absolutely no way, no how that I was going to pull off the highway and look for a store where I could buy some Dramamine...................for the dog!!!!  Yes, the dog.  This dumb dog has struggled with carsickness ever since we got her as a 9 week old puppy.  I gave her the last Dramamine that morning, not realizing it was the last one!  By the time we headed for home, that one had worn off.  You have never heard more wretched sounds coming from an animal than what comes from our dog.  After 10 minutes, she gave up and calmed down.  She was okay for most of the rest of the trip, although she did have another retching episode about 45 minutes from home.  Fortunately, Cookie held her cookies!!

All in all, it was a fun Thanksgiving and a good trip to Jamestown.  Granny got to see the kids for the first time since June.  We all had a wonderful time together.  We got to throw in a little bit of school too.   The kids saw Jamestown and left it intact.  They didn't burn down the Indian Village and they didn't set the Susan Constance adrift.   What more could you ask for in a holiday? 

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• Nov. 28, 2007
WHAT?? You mean Thanksgiving was LAST WEEK??? I'm better now, back to your regularly scheduled programming!

     Ok, I'll admit it.  My internal calendar is really messed up!  I'm in total and complete denial that Thanksgiving has already gone by (even though I did fully participate in it!)  It was so warm here at the beginning of October, we were still running around in shorts and stuff.  I'm thinking extended summer here.  So, now that it's the end of November (say it isn't so!!) I'm totally messed up.  It is just not possible that Christmas is less than a month away.  Really, truly, it's just not!!  Ok, so now that I've cleared the air here, I'll tell you about our Thanksgiving (which I do realize actually occurred almost a week ago.)

     We spent Thanksgiving with my Granny and Aunt Linda.  They live about 4 hours away from me (if you don't have to stop along the way--like THAT ever happens anymore!)  It was my mom's side of the family.  My gang, my brother and his wife and daughter, my parents and my grandmother and aunt.  We had a great time.  I had convinced my mom that caravanning with us is not an adventure that she and dad really needed to add to the day.  Our gang got up and got on the road at 9:30 Thanksgiving morning.  I was shooting for 9, so we actually did pretty well, considering that I didn't even begin packing until about 8am.  We had to take the dogs too because we didn't have anyone to come over and let them out.  I was quite tempted to just leave them out the whole time and hope that they would search out a new home, but alas, I caved and took them with us.  We went to McD's for breakfast (have you seen my post about a burger and a side of pandemonium? breakfast works the same way)  We got on the highway at 10:30.

     Anyone who knows traffic around the Washington, D.C. area knows that it is some of the worst in the country.  It really doesn't matter what day or time it is.  There's bound to be a backup somewhere.  As we were leaving Maryland across the American Legion Bridge, I saw tons of smoke coming from UNDER the bridge.  My heart skipped a beat as I imagined what might have happened.  The traffic on the other side was totally backed-up.  I didn't see any breaks in the side of the bridge (I was fearing that a car had gone over the side of the bridge and was burning--long, LONG way down--this would be a horrific accident) and I turned on a local news station, only to find out that there was a brush fire under the bridge and that's why they had blocked off all but 1 lane of traffic.  I thought, "Phew!  How lucky we're going the other way!"  Well, you know how things like that, even if they aren't spoken outloud can come back to haunt you?  It did.  We'd no sooner get going highway speed than everyone would put on the brakes.  I think they all did it just for the fun of it myself.  I wasn't really having all that much fun though.   

I drove most of the way there and back, so to occupy my mind as I was driving, I came up with this little ditty (to the tune of Over the River and Through the Woods.) 

Over the highway and through the tolls,
To Granny's house we go.
Our mom knows the way, we've been driving all day,
Through traffic that goes so slow!
 
Over the highway and through the tolls,
Oh, how we sing our woes!
"This is taking forever!" and "I've gotta go potty!"
as Over the highway we go!
                                             Naturally, I've got at least two in the back of the van shouting, "I've gotta go!!!"  And of course, it was on a stretch of road where there was just no place to stop.  Had it been only the boys, we'd have stopped and let them go au naturale behind a tree, but you just can't do that so easily with the little girls.  We found a little Mom & Pop gas station that looked like it fell straight out of the '50's or something, complete with Jed and Jethro Clampett, in hunter's garb to boot!  Oh, lucky day!  Well,  besides running into Jed and Jethro, imagine our sheer delight when we discovered that it was a 1-potty store.  Not one girls toilet and one boys toilet, but just one toilet period.  Well, when you've got a crew of 9, stopping in a 1-potty shop can take a good 30 minutes.  And seeing as Jed and Jethro came complete with shotguns, I was thinking that sending the boys behind the building to save time wouldn't be such a good idea.  What can you do?
                                               So, we got back on the road after fighting off all the begging and pleading for this and that candy and soda.  (And people wonder why God made me so strong-willed?)  We made it to Granny's and were, of course, the last ones to arrive.  Just not fair, considering I brought the most people, more dogs, left the earliest, and traveled the farthest!  We had a great afternoon and a fabulous dinner.  Mom had suggested that we do something educational on the trip (which, of course, made the trip even more interesting.)  Since Granny lives so close to Jamestown, we decided to stay overnight in a hotel and visit Jamestown the day after Thanksgiving.  We proceeded to head over to the hotel around 8pm. 
                                               Checking into the hotel seemed to go smoothly enough until we actually got to the rooms.  It is a total riot when my 7 kids go through a hotel carrying all the stuff that we had to bring into the hotel rooms.  We left the dogs in the car over-night, but the kids were tempted to try to smuggle them into one of the rooms in an overnight bag.  (They learned that trick from their mother)  Mom and Dad went to their room.  We went to the first of our two rooms.  Well, the TV was completely possessed.  The boys turned it on, but there was no sound.  No problem.  Hand me the remote.  I clicked the volume button about 3 times and thought I was absolutely going to lose my hearing.  I'm sure they could hear that TV about 3 floors down.  I pushed the button violently to quiet the beast.  Now, we have no sound at all again.  Ok, is this some sort of joke?  Well, you KNOW that we have to try that again just to see if it was a fluke the first time.  It wasn't.  And you also KNOW that anyone in the room that saw what happened just HAD to try it themselves to see if everyone else just happened to be total electronic idiots who didn't have any concept of how a remote control works!  AND, OF COURSE, my DAD walked in about that time!!  How deeply can you furrow your eyebrows?  Probably not as deeply as my dad!!  How loudly can you say, "SHHHHHHHH!!!"  (Can you say "oxymoron"?)  Probably not as loud as my dad!!
                                              About that time I decide it's in my best interest to check out the second of our two rooms than to stay in the room with my dad.  On the surface, everything in this room seems fine.  This TV is effectively programmed to do what it's supposed to do.  However, in this room, the AC/heating unit was on vacation.  Indefinitely.  It never even bothered to show up.  Danny called the front desk to ask if there were any tricks to get it to work.  The guy told him to "give it a couple of minutes."  I guess it just needed a little bit of time to get acquainted or something.  And apparently, it wasn't interested in getting to know us.  That ended up with Danny calling the front desk again to ask for not one, but TWO new rooms, *together*! 
                                              Amazingly, the hotel had 2 more rooms that were next-door to each other, and were even on the same floor across the hall from Mom and Dad's room, but were king suites instead of doubles.  Hmm, that means a number of someones will have to sleep on a pull-out couch in each room.  Not ideal.  There was no other room in the inn.  (Where have we heard that before?)  So, we decided to go ahead and take those rooms, but to shift EVERYONE (including my mom and dad.)  Now, my mom has spent enough time with us over the years to realize that this is pretty standard for us.  We've come to call these little episodes, "adventures."  Dad, on the other hand, was a little challenged to jump into the festivities of our adventure so easily.  We ended up having to uproot him from his room (in which every single thing worked perfectly well.)  But, in the end, I think it worked out okay because Danny and I and Mom and Dad both have king beds at home.  So, it was nice to be able to have a king bed in the hotel too.  We put Rachel, Tara and Megan in the double room.  Darcy stayed with Mom and Dad.  Lily was in her little porta-crib with me and Danny.  The boys were on the pull-out couch in my suite.  They had their own TV and the volume worked perfectly on it as well!  It took a little creativity to get it all sorted out, but in the end no one had to sleep in a manger!!   

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• Nov. 13, 2007
I'll have a burger with a side of pandemonium, please

It's always hysterical to go through any fast-food drive-thru with a family of 9.  Personally, because I seriously struggle with what I call "input overload," I abhor being in the driver's seat at a drive-thru when all the kids are with us, and I will avoid it like the plague.  Danny, on the other hand, will bravely, and usually quite patiently, endure the tempest that follows the deceivingly simple phrase, "May I help you?"

You'd think that by now, after 20 years of kids, we would have a system for this, but nooooo.  Danny will call out an order to the electric board and then at least 4 of the kids will simultaneously call out their orders to him.  As Danny tries to decipher the orders through the jumble of what was said, inevitably the order-taker will ask, "Is that all?"  If we aren't quick enough, we will be given our order total, at which point Danny must say, "I'm not done yet."  A typical order, like tonight, will go something like this:

Danny:  I just want you to know that this is going to be a large order.  Ok, I'd like a #3 with cheese, no onions, heavy pickle. 

Girl:  You want to super-size that?

Danny:  No, and I want a Dr. Pepper, lite ice.

Girl:  You want a Diet, no ice?

Danny:  NO, d.o.c.t.o.r. p.e.p.p.e.r--LITE ice.

Girl:  Okay, your total is....

Danny:  No, there's more, I've got a large order

Girl: Ok

Danny: I want a...

Josh, Megan and Darcy:  hamburger, Daddy he kicked me, chicken nuggets,get your seat belt on, icee, stop whistling, blah-blah shake, jingle bells, I like salads, I'm getting carsick, crispy blah blah,  I don't want anything right now, get a girl toy,  french fries, Mom she's taking off her shoes, no apple dippers, ewww--who farted? 

Girl:  Your total is....

Danny:  NO wait please, I've got more.  (turns head to kids) Josh, what did you say?  Never mind Josh, now, Darcy what do you want?

Josh, Megan and Darcy:  hamburger, Daddy he kicked me, chicken nuggets,get your seat belt on, icee, stop whistling, blah-blah shake, jingle bells, I like salads, I'm getting carsick, crispy blah blah,  I don't want anything right now, get a girl toy,  french fries, Mom she's taking off her shoes, no apple dippers, ewww--who farted? 

Danny (who must have telepathically received an order out of the above):  Ok, give me a kids meal with a hamburger--what do you want to drink?

Girl:  Is that all sir?

Danny:  No, I'm not done yet, I've got a LARGE order here.  This is going to take a little while.  Darcy, what do you want to drink?

Josh, Megan and Darcy:  hamburger, Daddy he kicked me, chicken nuggets,get your seat belt on, icee, stop whistling, blah-blah shake, jingle bells, I like salads, I'm getting carsick, crispy blah blah,  I don't want anything right now, get a girl toy,  french fries, Mom she's taking off her shoes, no apple dippers, ewww--who farted?  

Danny:  NO, what do you want to drink?

Darcy:  a shake

Girl:  Ok, your total is.....

Danny (enunciating now in a very exaggerated way):  NO, I've got MORE to order---Darcy what kind of shake do you want?

Darcy:  a small one

Danny:  No, what kind?

Darcy:  a kids meal

Danny:  No, Darcy, what kind of shake?

Darcy:  a kids meal shake

Girl:  Ok, your total is....

Danny (now speaking through clenched teeth and with brightly flushed cheeks):  NO, I've GOT MORE--Darcy, what color shake?????

Darcy:  pink!!

Danny:  ok, strawberry shake.

Girl:  Ok, your total is...

Danny (now past the point of no return):  NO, I'VE GOT A LARGE ORDER HERE!!

And on and on it goes.  There was one time that the girl actually raced Danny and told him his total before he finished every single thing that he ordered.  We've had people behind us honk their horns and shout out obscenities for the length of time it took us to order.  Nothing fast about fast-food when we drive up.  But really, I mean what's so bad about taking 45 minutes to order?  Then of course, after we get our order(3 hours later), we absolutely have to go through the entire bag to make sure that we have everything, because, let's face it, with an order like that, it's next to impossible for them to get it right in one shot.  In fact, I'd be willing to bet money that we've only gotten a competely correct order about as many times as I can count on one hand.  Yep, it's a real experience alright.  Chaos doesn't even begin to describe it adequately enough.  But, in our little abi-normal world, it's par for the course.  I'd like to think of these experiences as building blocks on the road of life.  I'd like to think that my kids will excel at dealing with situations out of the ordinary when they are grown.  I'd like to think lots of things---like, that the next time we go through the drive-thru it will be easy as pie.  Yeah, right!       

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• Nov. 8, 2007
How high is your spookability quotient?

Everyone has a trait that others in the family just love to exploit.  Mine is my spookability quotient.  I am and always have been quite spookable.  My spookability quotient is truly more than through the roof.   My family just delights to no end in finding ways to sneak up behind me and make me scream.  Scream, really?  YES!  SCREAM!!  REALLY!!   

It was proven to be an inborn characteristic in me yet again the other day.  Danny came home earlier than I expected him.  I neither heard him drive up the driveway in his loud Suburban nor walk in our s.q.u.e.a.k.y front door.  And I didn't see him because I was vacuuming with my back to the front of the house.  He walked in quite innocently and just said, "Hi guys."  Normal tone of voice.  I nearly jumped out of my skin and into the next room.   You know the stereotypical woman who screams bloody murder and jumps up on the nearest chair (or countertop,  or refrigerator) when she sees a mouse?  Well, I am that woman.  I am her and then some.  I screamed.  (Blood curdlingly.)  I jumped.  (White women can too jump!  Quite high, I might add)  The kids nearly died of laughter.  I, totally and completely in my flight or fight mode, instantly burst into tears.  What a great way for a man to be welcomed home after a hard day of work, right? 

Sadly for me, but quite hysterically for the rest of my family, this is a fairly common occurrence in our house.  And so, because today was quite uneventful here at home, but because I want to write something, I am going to record "an oldie, but goody" from years past. 

Rachel was about 4 and Tara was only 2.  They were all the kids we had at the time.  They shared a bedroom.  Rachel slept on a twin bed and Tara slept in a crib that had no side rail on it so she could get in and out by herself.  It was the middle of the night.  I woke up and felt a need to check on the little girls.  Please know that this can be a big deal for me, as I still fear the monster that resides under the bed and reaches out to grab your feet when you get up in the middle of the night.  But still, I felt inexplicably drawn to check on the girls so I determined I would not be afraid.  I sat up, swung my legs out over the side of the bed and jumped as far as I could to keep the monster from being able to reach my ankles.  So far, so good.  I padded softly across the hall from my room to the girls' room.  The bathroom was inbetween our rooms.  Normally, I would just flip on the bathroom light so I could see.  On this particular night, I had that steely determination to "be brave."  Sometimes, it's the littlest things in life that make the biggest difference.  I chose not to turn on the light.    

The faint light of the streetlight filtered softly through the drawn windowshades.  As I entered the room, I could hear the gentle rhythmic breathing of the girls.  Rachel was sleeping quietly and was all covered up.  I went to check on Tara.  I pulled up her blankets and sat lightly on the edge of her crib.  She was sound asleep too.  All was well.  Motherly tenderness overcame my heart and I stayed a moment to stroke her fine blonde hair and her velvety baby cheeks.  I glanced up toward their closet.  All motherly tenderness was shattered in that moment.  All was not well.  Fear utterly and completely gripped my heart as I saw the round outline of someone's head just peering from around the closet door.

At that moment I did not know what to do.  Could I possibly be seeing what I thought I was seeing?  How could an intruder have gotten into the house without the dog barking?  He was sleeping in his crate at the top of the stairs.  I forced myself to peer through the darkness, straining to see more clearly.  This time I not only made out the outline of someone's head, but of their shoulder as well.  My blood ran cold.  I was literally frozen with fear.   I was absolutely certain that in the murky darkness I had made out the outline of an intruder in my little girls' room.  I was panic-stricken.  I couldn't breathe.  He didn't move.  He must have seen me looking toward the closet.  He had to know I had spied his hiding place.  Still, he didn't move.  I didn't know what to do, so I did the only thing I could do.  I mustered up everything inside me and I screamed.  I screamed the most blood-curdling scream you ever heard.  It was truly a slasher-movie quality scream.  I was sure the intruder was going to rush out, but to my sheer terror, he remained still.  This frightened me even more. 

You'd have thought that upon hearing the ear-piercing scream of his wife in the middle of the night, my dear, darling, 6'3", 240 pound husband would now valiantly rush to my aid.  In my moment of greatest desperation, he slept.  In fact, he slept quite soundly.  He did not come valiantly or otherwise rushing to my aid.  My mind was reeling with the horror of my perilous situation.  Because I had screamed, the intruder now knew that I knew he was there.  Still, he did not move.  I could not move.  Danny would not move.  I did the only thing I could.  I screamed again.  I screamed even louder, if that were possible.  I screamed from the bottom of my toes.  There could not have been more terror in the scream that I screamed.  Finally, my knight in shining armor was aroused from his blissful slumber.  He came running in, still half asleep, sporting his finest karate chop moves, shouting, "Who 'dere?  Who 'dere?"  (Gotta love a Brooklyn accent at a moment like this)

I screamed, "There's someone in the closet!!"  He ran to the closet and flipped on the light.  He was shaking uncontrollably.  My heart was pounding through my chest.  He was blocking my view and I couldn't see what he was doing.  The reason he was shaking uncontrollably was because he began laughing uncontrollably.  Gradually, as my head began to clear, my breathing slowed to normal and my eyes began to focus, it started to dawn on me that we were no longer in mortal danger.  I was literally shaking.  Finally, Danny turned to me with a little smirk on his face and said, "Here is your bad-guy, honey."  He held in his hand a pair of helium balloons that were eerily suspended just at the right height to appear like a person's head and shoulder.  Balloons?  Balloons???  Are you kidding me?  I was scared out of my mind and to the point of wetting my pants by a pair of balloons????  Chalk it up to good old spookability!

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• Nov. 7, 2007
Why, why, why?

Kids don't get to corner the market on asking the question "why?" Do they?

Why is it when you make a comment about your kids' fantastic behavior, they go out of their way the next day to prove you a liar?  Why is it that when you think you are out of toilet paper, and miraculoulsy find 5 rolls that you didn't know that you had, the baby will promptly dump 3 of said rolls into the toilet?  Why does the baby think that the toilet paper rolls need to be "wash-boarded" so that they are totally soaked, and shredded to boot?  Why does that darling baby then decide to take the sloppy mess *out* of the toilet and distribute it onto the bathroom floor?  Why is it that (simultaneously to the baby's antics) the 6 year old, when trying to brush her teeth, will use up 2.75 tubes of toothpaste in order to do so?  Why is it that said 6 year old will realize that she's made a big mess and will then proceed to use 2 1/2 bottles of brand new shampoo to "clean" the toothpaste mess from the sink?  Why is it that once it gets the least bit cool outside, the kids think they need to drink 500 gallons of hot chocolate, all in one day?  And use up 2 bags of mini-marshmallows?  And 2 gallons of milk?  And yet, will run outside in tank tops and barefeet?

Oh, I could go on, but you get the picture.  That was my day today.  Fun, huh?  So, I ask, Why? Why? Why?

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• Nov. 6, 2007
Hope in the face of the blissfully unaware

You gotta love kids.  I mean, really.  Don't you just love it when they are able to function self-sufficiently?  Don't you just love it when they can (for an entire afternoon) get along really well with each other?  Don't you just love it when they can make and clean up their own lunches?  Don't you just love it when they can get their schoolwork done without having to be nagged to death(would that be my death or theirs)?  Don't you just love it when they are extraordinarily considerate of Mom?  Don't you just love it when they look out for each other without being asked?  Don't you just love it when all of the above happens on the same day?  Is this even remotely possible?

Yes, truly, if even for a moment, it is possible.  It happened.  It happened here at my house.  It happened here at my house yesterday.  It's as if all the stars and planets were aligned.  My kids behaved more than perfectly yesterday.  You'd think that I would have been overjoyed.  You'd think that I was the best mom on the planet.  You'd think that I had most certainly trained my kids to perfection.  You'd think that my kids were some of the greatest kids to ever live.  You'd think that I was living the perfect life.  Well, if you thought any of that, you thought wrong! 

My kids really did do all of the above yesterday, but they had such an ulterior motive.  You see, they were doing all of that so that I would STAY ASLEEP!  I was reading aloud to the boys and the story was in the language of the 19th century and was a trifle on the uh.....(shhh, don't tell them I said this) .....well, a bit on the boring side.  I had the first inkling that I was having trouble when I felt my eyeballs rolling around inside my head.  And that was only after about 3 pages.  We had to get through 2 whole chapters.  Two chapters.  No big deal, right?  I got a drink of cold water to invigorate me.  Two chapters.  This really is doable, right?  I thought I could muddle through it.  Apparently, I thought wrong, because I fell asleep on the couch.  Asleep like a baby.  Lily was asleep too, and so the boys and the little girls took it upon themselves to conduct their afternoon affairs in stealth mode so as not to wake me up.  Apparently, they are quite the stealthy bunch.  I slept blissfully unaware on the couch for nearly 2 hours. 

I awoke to pattering footsteps and whispering voices that were saying, "SHHHHH, be quiet.  If you aren't careful,  Mom will wake up!"  When you wake up to hear a statement like that, you know you're in trouble.  When you wake up to hear a statement like that, you begin to wonder what planet you've just beamed up from.  When you wake up to hear a statement like that, you fear that they've shot an entire bucket of 10 million air-soft bb's in the house (again.)  When you wake up to hear a statement like that, you hope and pray that the house is still inhabitable and not subject to being condemned by the health department.  Fortunately, the kids left the house in one piece and even cleaned up after themselves a little.  Talk about shock and awe.  I'd never have thought in a million years that they would do that.  It's just so funny that all the things I chase my kids to do everyday was what they did yesterday while I slept.  Maybe there's hope after all. 

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• Nov. 3, 2007
Please stand by: technical difficulties

I want very much to be able to post pics to the blog.  I thought I had figured it out the other day, but apparently not.  This blog is only for the purpose of practicing posting pics.

Here is one of the little girls--I hope it stays.

And here is one of Lily with Danny.

Ok, let's see if this works!

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• Nov. 1, 2007
It just adds to the excitement of Halloween to wait until the last possible minute to finish the costumes!

Halloween is always an interesting day.  Yesterday was no exception.  Megan has only been talking about being Little Bo Peep (with Lily as her sheep) since July.  You'd have thought that an organized, well-prepared mother would have taken steps to have completed the costumes months ago.  Well, unfortunately, THAT mother doesn't live in my house, I do.  Fortunately, Darcy had her heart set on being a cheerleader and I was able to secure a *real* cheerleader uniform from ebay.  Slam dunk on the cheerleader costume.   But, as of yesterday morning, Lily's costume was half complete, and Megan had a dress (another ebay find), stockings and shoes......no hat and no staff.  No problem, right??  Yeah, right!

Meg and I pulled out a baby bonnet, just to see if it might fit.  No way, Jose.  I looked at it to see if I could somehow use it as a pattern.  Too complicated.  I remembered a teacher's book I have with a pattern for a pilgrim bonnet.  Not really appropriate.  I googled bonnet pattern and found a couple that I thought I could work with.  The creative juices began to flow.  I ended up being able to modify two different patterns to get the look I wanted.  I had some white felt, so I "laminated" a piece of posterboard between 2 pieces of felt and used some bias tape to finish off the edges.  Then I hot glued no less than 7 YARDS of lace to the top.  I have a very impressive blister on my thumb to prove I used hot glue.  I had to call Mom to help me figure out how to secure the back, but she came through and Megan had the most adorable Little Bo Peep bonnet she could have hoped for considering she had none when the morning began.  We took a clost pole and spray-painted it black and then twined white and blue ribbon around it with a bow at the top.  It really was too cute.  Well, by the time I finished all that, it was time to go (as in, it had taken ALL DAY to make the bonnet and staff--ugh) and Lily's costume still needed velcro fasteners, a tail and ribbon ties sewn to her hood.  Because I am and have always been a stubborn and determined person, and because I was absolutely determined that my baby (who doesn't know the difference and might not even cooperate enough to even *wear* a costume) would be adorably outfitted, I did it in the car, which made me quite nauseous.  What joy.

We ate dinner with the little girls at McDonald's.  Then, it was off to the Harvest Party.  This was the little girls' first Harvest Party and at the last minute Megan decided she wanted to go Trick or Treating instead.  She began bawling.  Wonderful.  The drama just adds so much to the total effect of the day.  I was quite tempted to just let her stay home with Rachel, but we convinced her to come.  The first thing that greeted the girls when we got there was a castle-moonbounce.  Megan's attitude changed immediately.  Imagine that!  There were lots of games and lots of candy.  The girls had a great time and Megan even said she is looking forward to going again next year. 

 In the gym, while Meg and Darcy were playing games, Lily came face to face with a "creature" from another world.  She was stupified that anyone could possibly look as other-worldly as this little guy standing in front of her.  It was soon quite obvious that the "little creature" returned the sentiment.  They stood there just looking at each other for a very long time.  Neither smiled at the other.  Neither spoke a word.  I caught the shot at the last second when the "creature" looked away.  He was so adorable!

 

After the Harvest Party and 2 more rounds on the moon-bounce, we proceeded to head home.  A happy ending to an interesting day, right?  Well, apparently the day hadn't been quite interesting enough.  We headed to the grocery store because we needed to pick up more milk.  We always need more milk.  Even though I had just bought 2 gallons of milk the day before, we needed more milk.  And ice cream.  And Oreos.  Even though we had gobs and gobs of candy.  Apparently, there's not enough sugar coursing through our bloodstreams.  While Danny and the girls were in the store, and I was trying to entertain Lily, who absolutely abhors being strapped into a carseat, I realized that someone needed to go and pick up Zak and Josh from the 2 different parties they were attending.  So, nearly back in the direction we came, we headed out to pick up Zak.  Lily had had enough of the day.  She was terribly unhappy.  The only thing that will keep her quiet in the car is if we sing.  So, we sang.  Last night it just didn't have the same effect and she cried anyway.  The little girls sang anyway.  My head hurt anyway.  Danny fell asleep anyway.

We got Zak and headed out to get Josh.  Lily was still not happy.  By now it was about 10:45pm.  Considering that Lily typically goes to bed around 8, I'd say that she was just a little bit tired.  No singing in the world was going to soothe the savage beast in her last night.  Even Zak, who can usually get her quiet, failed in his attempts.  As we pulled up to pick up Josh, Lily vomited all over the front of the van.  Twice.  What a delightful way to end the evening's festivities.  And she hadn't even had any candy at all. 

All things considered, it was a successful day.  Here's my favorite picture of the day:  little lamb Lily with her Daddy.

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• Oct. 30, 2007
Some days are just *made* for pumpkin-hunting!

What a gorgeous day we had today!  And might I add a hearty "FINALLY" to go along with that!!  It was about 65 degrees, the sky was clear blue and cloudless.  One of those intensely gorgeous days that make me think that Heaven must be some kind of incredible to out-do a day like this!

We went with friends today to Larriland Farm.  The Pattons, the Johnsons and the Dunnes went with us.  The hayride wasn't being given today, so we walked it instead.  And how fun that was, truly!  Even the part where Amy helped me 'ford the creek" with the baby in the stroller.  Amy's always great for encouraging me to step out of my little zone and do something that I don't think I can do.  What's fun about the trail to the pumpkin patch is that Larriland puts up all kinds of "scarecrows" along the way.  We saw Harry Potter scarecrows, Shrek scarecrows, nursery rhyme scarecrows.  And the best part about NOT being on the hayride is that the kids could stop and pose for pictures with the scarecrows of their choice.  Great fun!

We got the the pumpkin patch and the kids went about choosing their pumpkins.  There were a surprising number of good pumpkins left and everyone found something to call his own.  When the kids were little, I told them that they could get the biggest pumpkin that they could carry.  However, now that Zak is nearly taller than Danny and can lift a good 200 lbs., I figured it wasn't a good idea to give them that loose of a guideline.  I'm all for pumpkins, but not $600 worth.  It ended up that Megan chose the largest pumpkin, and all together we got our 5 pumpkins for just under $25.   The kids were happy because they were with friends, I was happy because I didn't have to spend a ton of money and I was with friends too.  It was a really nice afternoon.  No one did anything scary or life-threatening.  We were able to keep track of Darcy (give that girl a wheelbarrow and she's busy for the whole afternoon!), and Lily even enjoyed it all.  Tomorrow, we have the joy of carving the pumpkins.  Darcy has already decided that she wants hers to be a cyclops.  "His name," she said, "will be Polyphemus."  She is just too funny. 

                                            Megan and Darcy

I will spend the rest of the evening trying to complete Lily's lamb costume.  I've broken 4 needles already because the lamb fleece is so thick.  I really do NOT want to finish sewing this by hand.  AND tomorrow, I'm going to give a real valiant effort to post pictures.  However, I make no promises, since dial-up and digital pictures make for a VERY long evening!!

Edited to add:  The official needle tally is 6, count them SIX, sewing maching needles, at which point I gave up trying to use the machine--and 2 hand needles, because I lost one in midstream and couldn't find it.  Don't worry though, every little bare foot is safe, because I have since found the lost needle on my bedroom floor.

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• Oct. 22, 2007
Huzzah!!

Yesterday, we spent the afternoon at the Maryland Renaissance Festival.  Huzzah!!

It's an interesting place, this MD RenFest.  Many, many people come in costume.  For those who do not arrive costumed, there is a place where one can rent a costume.  Rachel has a costume and went all decked out.  The rest of us went in "normal" attire.  I found it extremely interesting to observe the costumed, especially the menfolk.  Some as knights, a few as monks, some in tight velvet pants, many, many men in kilts.  Some men in very short, leather "kilts."  All I will say in regard to that is, "Interesting."  I would have liked to have seen more knights.  I wonder if one's choice of costume is directly reflective of one's character?  Of the women, it was painfully obvious that, for some, coming costumed for the RenFest simply functioned as a poor excuse for exhibitionism.  I felt sorry for my dh and 2 sons as "Br**sts on Parade" passed by all day long.  There were some that I thought should have been arrested for indecent exposure.  However, there were a great many women, modestly costumed in beautiful velvet gowns and such.  Some of the costumes left me pondering how it must have been, back in the Renaissance era, to have worn those heavy, cascading gowns and such everyday.  Personally, I'll take jeans anytime!

Well, the RenFest was testosterone-heaven for Danny and the boys (other than the parade going on)!  They played "Drench-a-wench," they threw knives, they threw axes, they watched jousting, they scaled castle walls.  Can you just hear Tim Allen going, "Rahr, rahr, rahr, rahr, RAHRRRRRRRR!"  Danny even let Darcy have a turn and throwing knives and to our sheer surprise, she actually stuck a couple in the wall!!  No easy task.  It was a riot, although I fear that one day I will find all the knives gone from my silverware drawer and being thrown at yonder tree in the yard! 

The most hysterical moment of the day was when we let Megan and Darcy climb the wall.  Basically, it was like a rock-climbing wall, placed on the side of a castle.  Megan went all the way to the top.  Megan came back down.  Darcy got about 60% up the wall, turned her head, looked down and realized how high she was and froze.  She wanted to come back down, but couldn't navigate it using the grips on the wall.  She wouldn't let go either.  We kept calling to her, telling her which foot to move up, but she wouldn't.  She just hung there.  We called to her telling her to let go, but she wouldn't.  She just hung there.  Danny went and stood below her and called to her to let go and he would catch her, but she wouldn't.  She just hung there.  Danny went to the girl holding the rope and asked if he could just pull Darcy to the top.  She let him take the rope and we kept calling to Darcy to "let go."  Now, I'm sure that she did not put together the fact that if she let go, the rope would catch her.  She must have thought we were out of our minds.  Danny pulled her higher up the wall, but she just caught on more finger and toe-holds and hung on.  At this point, there was a huge crowd watching her and calling, "Darcy, let go!"  She turned her head and looked at them with a tremendous look of incredulity.  Finally, one of the men who worked there (and wore tight velvet pants and a jester's hat) and could literally scale the wall like Spiderman climbed up to her, grabbed her rope and yanked her off the wall.  At that point, with Medieval Spiderman holding her out from the wall,  rope-girl lowered Darcy to the ground.  A cheer of epic proportions rose from the crowd as Darcy was saved!  The Queen of Spain had been in the crowd, cheering Darcy on.  When Darcy passed by her, the Queen handed Darcy $2 for her valiant effort.  Darcy could not have been more delighted!

Later in the day, we actually lost Darcy in a crowd.  How terrifying that feeling is!  After almost 10 minutes of searching, where did we find her, but watching the castle-climbers!  We made it to the 4pm jousting tournament.  At that point, Lily was pretty much spent, as she will NOT sleep when we are out anywhere.  She was fussing and crying and kicking the guy sitting on the bleacher in front of us.  Finally, when the horses came out with the shining, armored knights astride them, she called out, "Doggies!!"  So, to keep her happy throughout, each time the horses lined up for another pass, I had to get her attention saying, "Lily,  look, look at the doggies!!  Go doggies, go doggies!!"  I think the guy in front of us thought we were total loons!   Beside cheering for the doggies, I cannot count the number of times I was called upon to shout huzzah!!   If I never have to shout "huzzah" again, it will be too soon!  

All in all, it was a fun afternoon, especially since this was the period in time that Zak, Josh, Megan and Darcy had just finished studying in school.  It really made it come alive, for the little girls particularly.  Danny was gracious enough to buy the little girls outrageously over-priced princess headgear.  They were delighted and can now run around the house practicing their knife and axe-throwing as perfectly coifed princesses. 

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The musings, ponderings, recollections and recitations of life in my abi-normal world with my husband Danny, and my kids: Rachel 20, Tara 18, Zak 15, Josh 14, Megan 8, Darcy 6, and Lily 1.

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